Credit: ESA/Hubble

ParSNIP: Using deep learning to identify supernovae and probe dark energy

DiRAC researchers are heavily involved in building the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, a new facility that is currently under construction in Chile. This observatory will feature the 8.4 meter Simonyi Survey Telescope and the world’s largest CCD camera which will scan the entire visible sky every three nights. It will discover and observe millions of supernovae which are powerful explosions of stars that can outshine an entire galaxy for a brief period of time.

A particular type of supernovae called “Type Ia” can be used to map out how the universe has expanded since the big bang. This led to the discovery of dark energy which was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2011. The Rubin Observatory will discover over 100 times as many Type Ia supernovae then have been observed by all surveys to date and will dramatically improve our understanding of the universe.

Extracting scientific results from this large deluge of data is a big challenge. In his paper, DiRAC Fellow Kyle Boone discusses a new statistical model called ParSNIP that can be used to distinguish Type Ia supernovae from others and improve our maps of the universe. This novel work combines recent advances in computer science and deep learning with physics models of how light propagates through the universe. The resulting hybrid model is the first one that can empirically describe how the emitted light spectrum from any kind of supernova evolves over time.

This foundational work has many applications. ParSNIP will be used to identify the different kinds of supernovae that the Rubin Observatory finds, and it can do this with over twice the performance of previous models. It will also be used to hunt for new unknown kinds of supernovae in the large Rubin dataset. ParSNIP will use all of the millions of supernovae that the Rubin Observatory discovers to measure the properties of dark energy in contrast to current methods that can only use less than a tenth of the full sample. This work will transform supernova science with the Rubin Observatory and help to extract the full scientific potential.

About

Kyle Boone is DiRAC Postdoctoral Fellow. Kyle’s research focuses on developing novel statistical methods for astronomy and cosmology. He is particularly interested in using Type Ia supernovae to probe the accelerated expansion of the universe that we believe is due to some form of “dark energy”. One aspect of his research focuses on identifying Type Ia supernovae among the millions of astronomical transients that upcoming astronomical surveys such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will discover.

Read more here. GitHub here.

DiRAC Researcher Part of Inaugural Cohort of New NSF Fellows

DiRAC Fellow Rebecca Phillipson has been awarded a Mathematical and Physical Sciences Ascending Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (MPS-Ascend) to conduct a program of research and education at the University of Washington. This new prize fellowship is intended to recognize beginning investigators of significant potential, and provide them with experience in research that will broaden participation in mathematics and the physical sciences.

Dr. Phillipson plans to employ statistical methods from nonlinear dynamics paired with deep learning techniques to characterize and classify the millions of X-ray Binaries (XRBs) and Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) observed by the Zwicky Transient Facility. The resulting classification will enable discovery of previously unknown XRBs and AGN, potentially illuminate undersampled or undiscovered modes of variability from these sources, and prepare a path of discovery for future time domain missions. The research program will also operate as a vehicle for undergraduate students from underrepresented groups to engage in both data science and astrophysics research.  She will partner with the UW eScience Institute to develop an accessible website for the dissemination of the scientific results from her research program. A key feature of her data access plan is enabling visually impaired scientists to interact with the data by using sounds to facilitate feature detection and analysis. This approach, called sonification, uses existing software tools to map scientific data to acoustic sequences.

“Dr. Phillipson’s research exemplifies our aims for the DiRAC Institute: she develops innovative timeseries analysis methods and applies them to large datasets to enable new discovery,” says Prof. James Davenport, Associate Director of DiRAC.  “We’re thrilled that her excellent research and contributions to inclusion have been recognized with this fellowship, and look forward to continuing to collaborate.”

Announcing the LSSTC Catalyst Fellowships

The LSST Corporation, a non-profit consortium of approximately 30 research institutions (including UW), has received $7 million to establish the LSSTC Catalyst Fellowship Funded by the John Templeton Foundation. These will support early-career researchers as they study big data generated from the soon-to-be-completed Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile.

Asteroid Day LIVE 2021

Learn more about the first planetary defence mission on this year’s Asteroid Day LIVE

The full LIVE program schedule here will broadcast on June 30th, 2021 and it will repeat until July 4th, 2021. Watch the program live here at asteroidday.org

Asteroid Day is a global day of awareness and public education about asteroids. At science centers, schools, museums, universities, and community centers around the world events are being held to learn about the origin and composition of asteroids and how to deflect, detect and map their trajectories in our solar system to protect us from potential impacts and many more subjects relating to asteroids. There are thousands of events from around the world. A vision of self organized events around the world has come true with over 125 countries hosting events this year, on June 30th, 2021.

Top-End Assembly (TEA) on the Summit

A major milestone was reached in the construction of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory last week. The “Top End Assembly”, which holds the secondary mirror (M2), was lowered into place within the massive enclosure. Though this is the smaller mirror on Rubin, M2 is a whopping 3.4-meters in diameter, and weighs over 1500 lbs.

This assembly milestone brings the observatory much closer to its expected beginning of full operations sometime in 2023. DiRAC and UW are playing a leading role in the development of software to support and operate the first phase of Rubin: the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). UW is also one of the four founding members of the LSST Corporation.

More details on TEA on the Summit here.